Tech —

Pixelmator 1.6.2: the Ars Technica review

Everywhere you turn, people are trying out and talking about a new image …

Certain programs you hear about through user buzz, and Pixelmator has been on a lot of people's lips since it made its 1.0 debut. Since my work is about as demanding as it gets for photo and texture editing, I haven't had a chance to get out of Photoshop and see whether the hype is warranted or not, until now. Over the last couple weeks, I've spent some time with Pixelmator to find out what it's great at, what it's bad at, and who it's meant for. I also took some time to compare it to The GIMP and to Adobe's consumer-oriented Adobe Photoshop Elements.

Could I make the switch to Pixelmator for my work? Hell no. Could someone use it for high-quality image editing or Web design? Definitely. Let's delve in and see if it's right for your needs.

Price

$30.00, available exclusively on the Mac App Store.

Test hardware

Mac Pro 2010

Dual-socket six-core 2.66GHz Westmere Xeon Mac Pro

15GB RAM

OCZ Vertex Turbo 120GB system disk

2TB striped RAID working disk

ATI 5870 1GB

dual NEC 2490WUXi LCDs at 1920x1200

MacBook Pro specs

MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz

4GB RAM

OCZ Vertex Turbo 120GB system disk

NVIDIA Geforce 8600M

The Pixelmator Interface

Everything about this app screams "I'm a modern Mac program." Sleek bezels, sheets, great icons, not-too-gratuitously animated transitions, and judicious use of transparency all make this feel like the image editor complement to apps like Panic's Transmit or Coda:

Pixelmator's startup screen.

Similar to those revered Panic apps, Pixelmator's not just a pretty face. The document presets instantly show you that this is a program that's meant for serious work with various outputs in mind:

Presets for web banners. I can never remember those sizes

It comes with an integrated photo browser that ties into Aperture and iPhoto image libraries:

It's basic but it has a search field.

There are rules guides with optional numerical input and units of measure:

It's missing fathoms, so people who make deep sea advertising will be sadly disappointed. No one can see you cry underwater.

Overall, Pixelmator's interface really sells it as the sleek package that it is. The little touches like the measurements for guides, fading ruler highlighting and overall polish are really satisfying and give the whole interface a tactile appeal:

video

Lightweight and fast

Pixelmator uses Core Image and OpenGL for image display, which has a noticeable effect on tool and adjustment speed. The live feedback of the Magic Wand's threshold, Replace Color adjustment, and Gradient tool are helpful and responsive, even on my MacBook Pro's aging NVIDIA 8600M.